Kalaallisut language
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| Kalaallisut | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Greenland (Denmark) | |
| Region: | North America | |
| Total speakers: | approximately 54,000 | |
| Language family: | Eskimo-Aleut Inuit Kalaallisut |
|
| Official status | ||
| Official language of: | Greenland (Denmark) | |
| Regulated by: | Oqaasileriffik | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | kl | |
| ISO 639-2: | kal | |
| ISO/FDIS 639-3: | kal | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
The Kalaallisut language (also called Western Greenlandic, Greenlandic Eskimo, or Greenlandic Inuktitut) is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken in Greenland. It is closely related to some languages in Canada, such as Inuktitut. Kalaallisut is spoken by about 54,000 people, which is more than all the other Eskimo-Aleut languages combined. The northern dialect, Inuktun or Avanersuaq, spoken around the city of Qaanaaq (Thule) is particularly closely related to Canadian Inuktitut.
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[edit] Phonology of Kalaallisut
The most extensive study of Kalaallisut phonology is Jørgen Rischels "Topics in West Greenlandic Phonology" (1974)[1].
Three vowels: /i/, /u/ and /a/
Before an uvular consonant ([q] or [R]) /i/ is realized allophonically as [e] or [ɛ] and /u/ as [o] or [ɔ]. This alternation is shown in the modern standard orthography by writing /i/ and /u/ as {e} and {o} respectively when ocurring before uvulars ({q} and {r}).
Double vowels are pronounced as two mora, so they are phonologically a vowel sequence not a long vowel, they are also written as two vowels in the orthography. There is no stress phonemic or phonetic but heavy syllables (with double vowel or in front of a consonant cluster) sound stressed and some intonational patterns also sound like stress.
Consonants
Letters between // are phonemes and the following letter is the way it is spelled in the new standard Greenlandic orthogaphy of 1973.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | /p/ - p | /t/ - t | /k/ - k | /q/ - q | |
| Fricatives | /v/ - v/f [2] | /s/ - s | /ɣ/ - g | ||
| Nasals | /m/ - m | /n/ - n | /ŋ/ - ng | ||
| Liquids | /l/ - l / ɬ - ll | /R/ - r | |||
| Semivowel | /j/ - j |
Kalaallisut phonology distinguishes itself phonologically from the other Inuit languages by a series of assimilations. One of the most famous Inuktitut words, iglu (house), is illu in Kalaallisut, where the /gl/ consonant cluster of inuktitut is assimillated into an unvoiced lateral affricate. And for example the name Inuktitut, when translated into Kalaallisut, is Inuttut.
[edit] Grammatical features of Kalaallisut
The language, like its relatives, is highly polysynthetic and ergative. There are almost no compound words, but mostly derivations. Greenland has three main dialects: Avanersuaq (Northern Greenland), Tunu (East Greenland) and Kitaa (West Greenland).
Kalaallisut distinguishes two open word classes: nouns and verbs. Each category is subdivided by intransitive and transitive words. The languages distinguishes four persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd reflexive), two numbers (singular, plural; no dual as in Inuktitut), eight moods (indicative, participial, imperative, optative, past subjunctive, future subjunctive, habitual subjunctive), ten cases (absolutive, ergative, equative, instrumental, locative, allative, ablative, perlative; for some selected nouns: nominative, accusative). Verbs carry bipersonal inflection for subject and object (distinguished by person and number). Transitive nouns carry possessive inflection.
[edit] Orthography
In contrast to Eskimo-Aleut languages in Canada, Kalaallisut is written with the Latin alphabet and not with the Inuktitut syllabary. A special character, Kra (ĸ), was used exclusively in Kalaallisut until the spelling reform of 1973 replaced it with the letter q. [3]
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes
- ^ Jørgen Rischel, 1974, Topics in West Greenlandic Phonology. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.
- ^ f is the way of writing the devoiced /vv/ geminate.
- ^ http://www.evertype.com/alphabets/greenlandic.pdf
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